


Different than yours

by Azalea_Scroggs



Category: Little Women (2019)
Genre: Angst, Apologies, Aromantic Asexual Josephine March, Gen, Letters, Unrequited Love, self-deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azalea_Scroggs/pseuds/Azalea_Scroggs
Summary: A letter Jo March wrote to Laurie after his proposal, that she found back years later in her drawer.
Relationships: Theodore Laurence & Josephine March, Theodore Laurence/Josephine March
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	Different than yours

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen Little Women yesterday and was very moved by all the characters, but especially by Jo March, who resonated a lot with me. So this little thing came out in about one hour.
> 
> Based on the movie.

Dear Teddy,

I'm sorry.

I can't even say your proposal was a surprise to me; I had hoped with all my heart you wouldn't, but I think somehow I always knew how you felt. I thought that maybe by ignoring how you sometimes look at me, the way you have of taking my hand to dance and laughing with dimples in your cheeks, or how you take me in your arms and hide your nose in my hair, I'd manage to make all that last a little longer.

I'm a selfish person, I know. If you knew how much I hate myself now for making you so miserable this afternoon, for not being able to say yes to you. I know I shouldn't tell you that, but I've wondered once or twice if I hadn't made a mistake in rejecting you, if saying yes wouldn't have been the right thing to do, if I shouldn't have trusted you and believed that I could be a good wife to you.

You don't know how much it hurt me to reject you. Part of me wants to go back in time and erase it all, spare you that pain and myself too. 

But I can't, despite how much I wish to.

I don't expect you to understand, for all that you have always understood me better than anyone else in this world. But the thought of marriage, of settling down, of having children, terrifies me. My heart runs from that idea like a mouse from a cat. When I figure myself in that life, I find that I cannot breathe, I feel as restrained as a caged bird, forced to sing forever but unable to fly, pretending to be something it isn't and longing to return to its true nature.

You've said I'd find someone to love someone passionately because that is how I am. You're wrong and right at the same time; it is such a mess in my heart, I don't expect you to understand. I am so full of love sometimes it feels like it will consume me.

And I love you, Teddy, I love you more than my words can tell. I want to spend every minute skating with you, and going to the theatre together, living in this imaginary world that only belongs to us. You're part of my family, just like my mother and my sisters.

But that is exactly why I cannot marry you. Don't you see? It would be the world shrinking on itself. It would be the sun forced into a little box. I have seen you looking at me and I know that no matter how much I love you, I will never be able to do it the way you want me to.

You're my best friend, like my brother. I had hoped it would remain so forever; part of me, greedy little me, still wishes for it to be so, even though I know things will never be the same.

Perhaps the very reason that I feel so much is that there is something broken in me, the same way that blind people find all their other senses enhanced.

I didn't lie when I said I thought I would never get married. It wasn't an attempt to make you feel better. When everybody else keeps thinking of finding their other half, I find myself whole, unable to make that space in me for that special person in my life. It can be lonely, but I cannot help it.

At least I have my words to keep me company. I have my family, my sisters, my stories and my dreams; for a time I had you, too. I wish I could have kept you forever, and I don't want to lose you.

But I am told everyone needs to settle down, and no matter how much it crushes me, I have finally learnt that is true of you, too. Perhaps it will be a consolation to you when I remain the old spinster I have always said I would be. Maybe then we can be friends again, find back that part of our childhood that I am still desperately clinging to?

But I am getting ahead of myself. I know I am always taking too much, and never giving enough.

You deserve better than me, Teddy. I hope you have a wonderful and happy life.

Yours,

Jo


End file.
